The Trust for Governors Island

Welcome to Governors Island

Governors Island, a 172 acre island in the heart of New York Harbor, is only 800 yards from Lower Manhattan, and even closer to Brooklyn.

The Trust is transforming Governors Island into a destination with great public open space, as well as educational, not-for-profit, and commercial facilities. Construction has been completed on 30 new acres of park and public spaces that will open for public use in May 2014.

The Trust has also broken ground on the Hills, the crowning feature of the new park. In addition to the completion of the new park spaces and construction of the Hills, The Trust is proceeding with an ambitious infrastructure program to ready the Island for expanded tenancy and activity.

As we’ve been reaching out to the public through various avenues like this blog, exhibits, a survey, and meetings, people have given us all kinds of great suggestions for what they’d like to see and do in the future park. This “word cloud” shows you some of those ideas, with the size of the word corresponding to the frequency of the suggestion.

The West 8 design team took in those suggestions and other program activities and mapped them onto an outline of the Island. This “word map” shows the wide range of activities that will be available in the future park. Visitors of all ages will find something delightful, challenging, and fun as they play and explore. The park design will provide chances to do everyday activities in extraordinary settings. Playing ball next to the water with a view of the Statue of Liberty, going for a stroll to take in views of the entire harbor and envigorating salty breezes, freedom to fly a kite on a big open lawn…